Beck, Interrupted
by laurenwrites
Summary: He did a lot of stumbling before finally getting it right. / Written for Save the Bade.


**This was written for Save the Bade, the proposal segment. Thanks so much to Cassandra for letting me participate!**

**My prompt was "senseless stumbling," which in this story is more metaphorical than physical. But you'll figure that out.**

**Read, review, & enjoy!**

* * *

_He did a _lot_ of stumbling before finally getting it right._

* * *

"So, d'you know how you're gonna do it?"

Beck closes his now-empty wallet and shoves it back into his pocket before taking the little blue bag off of the glass counter. "Do… _Oh._ Right. Yeah, I'm gonna take her to her favorite restaurant and just…do it."

"Awesome. Good luck, man."

"Thanks," he replies through a grin. As he steps out of the jewelry store on Madison Avenue, he can't help but feel proud of how well he's managed to keep his plans of proposing from his girlfriend—who typically catches on to everything he's doing before he even thinks it himself. During his walk back to their apartment on the lower East side of Manhattan, he dumps the bag (along with the receipt that he's sure he won't need) in a trash can and places the velvet box carefully in his pocket.

Though he feels slightly feminine for doing so, he can't help but pull his phone out to call his best friend to share the news. Lucky for a very excited Beck, Andre's quick to answer.

"Hey!"

"Hey, man. How's it going?"

"It's great! How are things in LA?"

"Good, good. Gah, I can't believe we're graduating in a few months. It seems like yesterday we were all saying goodbye to Hollywood Arts, and now we're headed out into the real world."

"It's crazy, that's for sure," Beck agrees. "And, uh…speaking of the real world: guess what I just did?"

"Can I actually guess, or are you just gonna blurt it out?"

Beck laughs. "Go for it."

"Alright, I'm gonna go with _You just bought Jade a ring_."

"What the—" He stutters, turning his head over his shoulder curiously, "Are you stalking me?"

"Are you kidding?" Andre chuckles. "Beck, when's the last time you called me to ask me to _guess what you just did_? Who are we, Cat and Jade? Besides, I think you forget how often you say you're gonna do it. I figure you just put on your big girl panties and bought it."

Beck rolls his eyes, but he can't keep the smile off his face. "Fair enough."

"In all seriousness, though, make sure you don't lose that thing!"

"What? _Lose_ it? Dude, are you joking? I just spent more money on this ring than I ever dreamed I'd even _have_ at this age."

"I'm just saying! You do…lose things."

"Not true."

"You lost my birthday present before my birthday last year; you lost the script we worked on for three weeks in Sikowitz's class; you lost your mind when that cricket wanted to share your RV a few Christmases ago; you lo—"

"Alright, alright. Sheesh, thanks for being a friend," he jokes.

Andre laughs. "Congratulations, bro. I'm happy for you. Just…get that ring on Jade's finger as soon as possible so I can quit worrying."

"Trust me," Beck replies as he steps into the elevator in their apartment complex, "I'm doing it as soon as I can. Like, _tonight_."

"Perfect. Lemme know how it goes!"

"Sure thing. Later!"

When Beck pushes the door open to the apartment he shares with his girlfriend, he looks at the clock to see that he's got about five minutes before she's back. He quickly drops his backpack by the couch and rushes into their bedroom, where he hides the box in the back of his nightstand drawer.

"Beck," he hears her call from the living room, "I'm home."

"Hi, Babe," he greets as he approaches her. He gives her a kiss—not much longer than a peck, but just as sweet—before helping her get her coat off. "How were classes?"

"Fine, I guess," Jade answers before walking to their kitchen to open a cabinet. "Ugh," she groans, "I am so tired of eating mac and cheese—and I _never_ thought I'd say that." She pulls the freezer ajar instead and grabs a mini ice cream cone, which she promptly unwraps and begins to snack on. "How was your day?" She asks, plopping herself up onto the counter.

"I had a really good one, actually," he responds, meeting her to stand between her straddled legs. "But," he says, taking the cone from her hand, "you don't want to spoil your appetite."

"My appetite for what?" She scoffs. "Tonight's _special_ of ramen noodles with a side of more ramen noodles?"

"No," is his simple reply. "I'm taking you out tonight."

She lets in a small gasp as her eyebrows raise excitedly, and he can't help but imagine seeing that expression on her face again tonight when she sees her ring. "SleepNoMore?"

"Yep," he announces proudly. "I made a reservation for eight thirty. Think you can be ready by then?"

She snatches her ice cream back. "I have three hours."

"Uh-huh. It's been eight years, West. And I'm pretty sure I've had to wait for you before every date night _ever_."

She rolls her eyes as she leans in to press her lips to his. "But I'm worth it."

He grins and grabs her legs before kissing her again. "Damn right you are."

.

"Oliver, for two. Sorry, we're…a little late."

"Ah, yes, sir. Follow me to your table."

"Good thing they didn't take us off the list," Beck teases as he grabs Jade's hand to keep up with the host. As soon as they're seated, he hops up quickly. "I've actually gotta use the bathroom. Promise I'll be fast."

He's impressed with the delivery of his alibi—but he is an actor, after all—and he rushes back into the kitchen to find his waiter friend Max, with whom he'd spoken on the phone earlier in the day.

"Hey," he greets, giving Beck a hug, "good to see you. You got the ring?"

"I got it," he answers, pulling the box out of his pocket.

"Sweet. Okay, so just to go over the plan… I'm gonna put this at the bottom of the bread plate, and I'll make sure all the bread covers it?"

"Yeah, yeah. That's perfect. When we finish it, she'll see it, I'll ask her, and _boom_—we're engaged."

"Boom," Max repeats.

"Exactly. You good?"

"Yeah, man," he answers, taking the box from his friend. "Good luck!"

"Thanks! And thanks again for doing this; I can't wait to see the look on her face."

When Beck makes it back to their table, Jade has already ordered them a bottle of wine. "Sorry about that," he says as he gets back into his seat.

"So, are you gonna tell me why we're here?"

He looks up, putting his acting skills to use in his best attempt to cover his excitement. "What? What do you mean?"

"I _mean_," she clarifies, setting her menu down, "we're broke and at a really expensive restaurant."

"It's your favorite restaurant," he counters.

"True. I'm just trying to make sure it's not our anniversary or anything…"

"_Well after tonight you'll never forget this day, that's for sure," _Beck thinks to himself. "Nope," he says instead. "I just wanted to do this with you."

Just as he's finishing his word, their waitress arrives at the table with their plate of appetizer bread and Beck's stomach is starting to do flips. "Enjoy," is all she says before leaving them.

"Aw, _yes_," he says, starting on a piece of the soft French bread.

"Since when are you so enthusiastic about bread?"

He slowly sets the slice back down and casually rips a small piece off, newly nervous that he's being too obvious. "Well, the bread here is always really good."

"I guess," she replies, taking a sip of her wine.

"A—Aren't you gonna have any?"

"Mm-mm," she shakes her head before setting her glass down. "_Carbs_."

"What? Your body is perfect! You're really not gonna have any?"

"Even so, no, I won't be having any. I have to start auditioning for roles bigger than just local commercials soon, so I can't just be eating all pasta and bread."

Beck sighs, but he knows that if he's too verbal about insisting she eats it, she'll start getting suspicious. He's just glad that the bread is so good, because it looks like he'll be eating it all by himself. As he starts on his second piece, he cautiously starts his planned conversation.

"You know I love you more than anything, right?"

She furrows her eyebrows. "Yes. You've told me every day since we were fourteen."

He smiles, happy to know that his repetitive words have successfully sunk in—no matter how much she'd protested that they wouldn't when they were younger. "And you make me really, really happy," he adds, finishing his third of the four pieces of bread (the last one sitting in the center of the plate, under which the ring is hiding).

"I would hope so," she retorts. "We've been dating for eight years. By the way, you're eating that bread like it's your _job_. I think you'rethe one that's spoiling your appetite…"

He laughs nervously and sips his wine to help the bread (and nerves) go down easier. "Hey, we're poor and starving college kids; I think I have an excuse to pig out when we actually go someplace nice."

"I guess you have a point," she admits.

"Anyways," he furthers, ready to pick the last piece up to reveal her ring, "I just want you to know that you're the most important person in my life, and I want to be with you forever."

Just as Jade is picking up on what he may be doing, Beck lifts the last slice of bread to uncover nothing but the bottom of the white plate.

He immediately starts to panic as he starts thinking about the possibility that he swallowed it. He shuns that thought away, and then begins sweating awkwardly as he realizes that the waitress must have brought the wrong plate. "Um," he clears his throat.

"Babe, is…everything okay?"

He's quick to pull himself together. "Yes, yes, of course." _No._ "I just…got a little choked up. I just love you a lot, that's all."

A sympathetic smile appears on her face, and she reaches her hand across the table to grab his. "I don't know how on earth I fell for such a cheesy sap, but I guess you're better than nothing. I love you, too."

He has to smile back at her, but inside he can't help but feel bad at the fact that he just messed up his proposal—and he has to leave _as soon as possible _to go find that damn ring.

"Would, uh… Would you kill me if I said I had to go to the bathroom again?"

"Well I'm not surprised," she teases. "If bread makes you have to pee, I guess that's your deal. Hurry back."

"Thanks, Babe," he mumbles before kissing her cheek and practically running back into the kitchen.

"Max!" He calls upon entering as he sees his friend. "Max, dude, what the—"

"Beck, hey, I was just about to text you. Claire messed up; she grabbed the wrong plate. I'm so sorry!"

"It's fine, it's fine. Just, please tell me you got the ring."

"Of course," he answers, pulling the box out of his pocket. "I'm really sorry, man. Hopefully you can still do it tonight?"

"You think I should?"

"Yeah, dude! You already worked yourself up and you're here at this fancy restaurant and you've got the ring. Just do it!"

"Okay," Beck breathes, nodding his head. "Yeah, you're right. I got this. Thanks!"

When he arrives back at the table for the second time, Claire is back and ready to take their orders. After they place their requests and she's disappeared, Beck sets his elbows back on the table. "Anyways, where were we?" He asks, under the façade that he doesn't know _exactly _what they'd been talking about.

"You were being corny," she replies. "So, to change the subject, did I tell you my professor called me out to talk to him today after class? He said he thinks my script has real potential and that I should seriously consider it as a career. I, of course, asked him why else he thought I'd be in a script-writing class at NYU if I didn't want to do it for a living, but it's a pretty great compliment nonetheless, I'd say."

"That's awesome, Babe! We're going to have such amazing lives," he says, hoping to ease back into the proposal.

"I just want to graduate and start working for _real_."

"Totally. We'll be a power couple for sure."

"Oh we will, will we?"

"Definitely," he assures her. "So, that brings me to something I've been wanting to talk about for a while…"

She narrows her eyes curiously. "Okay, shoot."

"Well, I—"

"Oh my god, _yes_!"

Beck and Jade both turn their heads to see a guy a few tables away from them, on his knee in front of a girl sitting on the other side of the table. Suddenly, the entire restaurant bursts into applause as she jumps up to kiss him and he slides the ring on her finger, both of them grinning.

"_Are you kidding me?"_ is, instead, his only thought.

Even Jade is clapping, which—if it were any other day that he _wasn't_ planning on proposing to her—would make Beck happy by giving him the hope that she'd say yes when his time came.

"That's sweet," she says as the waitress again approaches their table, this time with their food.

"Mmhmm," Beck mumbles disappointedly.

"What's wrong? Did that guy's proposal ruin your moment with your last piece of bread?"

He rolls his eyes. "I just think it's…you know…_showy_…when dudes get on their knees like that." _What a lame excuse._

"Oh, I know, right?"

_Well, at least they're on the same page._

"Like, come on, at least be original!" She scoffs. "Anyways, what did you want to talk about?"

"Oh, right," he says, nearly choking on his bite of steak. If there were ever an award for consistently failing to play it cool, Beck Oliver's name would undoubtedly be on that trophy. With his record so far, he might just win an award for consistently failing to propose, too.

"I, uh… I just wanted to say that I'm really excited for Robbie and Cat. I…can't wait for that to be us."

_Okay, that might not have been the smartest thing to bring up._

"I hope you're not trying to tell me that you want to have a baby."

"No, no, no," he quickly covers—even though, to be honest, he might not be opposed to the idea. "We're doing fine paying our own bills; we don't need to be paying any for a kid right now."

"Okay, good. I was thinking for a sec that maybe you were allergic to bread and it made you… I dunno…lose your mind or something."

"Well, you…_have _changed your mind about that though, right?"

"About having a baby?"

"Yeah. You know… I mean, when we were in high school I know you didn't want that, like, _ever_. But now you're more open to it, right?"

"I guess so… I definitely want to be a well-paid actress before I'm popping one out, though. And besides, I think we should see how we do as godparents to Baby Shapiro before we even _talk _about getting pregnant."

"Right. Definitely." He thinks he's screwed up enough for tonight to leave it at that, and he sneaks the box back from his lap into his pocket for another time.

.

"What are you doing in there?"

"Nothing—sorry, the ice cream's just really frozen."

"Hurry; I'm starving!"

"Okay, okay, coming." Beck rushes back with her chocolate ice cream just in time to join her on the couch. After handing her the bowl, at the bottom of which he's secretively placed her ring, he tries to hide the fact that he's watching her and not the screen.

"Damn," she groans, "there's nothing on TV."

"Keep flipping channels," Beck says, slinging his arm around her. "We'll find something."

When she continues surfing, she lands on some romantic comedy that neither of them has seen. On the screen, a girl is pulling her fork out of her cake to see that an engagement ring is looped onto the utensil. "_Alex_!" She exclaims.

"People are so stupid," Jade muses, catching Beck's attention. "Why the hell would you ever put a ring in someone's food? They could choke on it, and that would defeat the whole purpose of even proposing in the first place because the person would die… Ooh… They should make a movie like _that_," she says, the wheels in her brain beginning to turn as she bites on her fingers. "I should write that."

Beck's eyes widen. "Um, can I have some of your ice cream?"

"Get your own!"

"Pleeaaaaase?"

"Ugh, _fine_," she whines, handing him the bowl.

He takes a big bite, and, as she's trying to take it back, she feels his hand pull it towards him. "Wait, I'm sorry, Babe," he says. "I shouldn't have done that. I actually haven't been feeling too well, and I don't want you to get whatever…I have."

"What? Are you being serious right now?"

"Totally. I'm sorry; I'll get you another one right now."

"Beck, we make out all the time. We share a bed, and a living space… If you were sick, I'd be sick by now, too."

"I don't want to risk anything," he insists, hopping up to return to the kitchen before she can argue back again.

Jade rolls her eyes and changes the channel.

And another chance slips away from him.

.

It's the Saturday morning of the next week when Beck decides to try again. He figures that, given the possible possibility that _someone_ in New York is planning to go to the same coffee shop and propose this morning, he should probably try proposing in the comfort of their own apartment.

While Beck waits for her to wake up, he looks at the girl that's cuddled in his arms and twirls a strand of her dark brown hair on his finger. It brings a smile to his face when he realizes that, assuming she says yes in about twenty minutes, this is how he'll be waking up every day for the rest of his life.

Yes, he can _definitely_ get on board with that.

When she finally does open her eyes to look up at him, she cracks a smile and perches her head up to kiss him. "Good morning," he whispers. "I would love to stay in bed with you, but I know you want your coffee, so I'll be right back."

She nods her head and closes her eyes again to get a little more rest until he returns with their mugs. "One for you," he announces, handing her the mug as he kisses her lips.

"Thank you," she says sleepily, sitting up in their bed that had taken them so long to save for.

"Always." He's got the ring in the pocket of the sweatpants he'd slept in, and he's ready to pull it out as soon as he finishes his little speech. "So, about last weekend—"

"Yeah, I could tell you were sort of upset about something. And you've been turning in your sleep more than you usually do."

"Sorry," he mumbles.

"You don't have to apologize," she counters, rubbing his arm soothingly.

"I just…didn't really get to say what I wanted to."

"Well here's your chance," she replies casually. "Go for it."

"Okay, well I just wanted to say," he begins, reaching his hand in to get the ring out of his pocket.

"Beck, stop, you're gonna—_Ahhh_!"

"Oh my god." Beck looks back up to see that, in his fumbling to pull the ring out, he's accidentally tipped his cup to spill coffee all over Jade. "Oh my god, Babe, _shit_, I'm so sorry."

"No, it's…it's okay," she says, inching her legs out to try to relieve her skin from the burn of the hot coffee.

"It's not okay," he mutters. "You know what? At this point, I don't even care if you have coffee all over you."

She furrows her eyebrows. "What?"

"I love you," Beck stammers. "And I want to be with you for the rest of my life, and I've known that since we were fourteen. Everyone told me I was crazy to fall for the scary, scissor-obsessed girl, but I'm so glad that I did. You're the best thing that ever happened to me, and," he continues, pulling the ring out of his pocket, "if I don't say this now, I feel like I'll never get the chance—"

"Yes."

"Wait…what? That was…quick."

"Sorry," she sighs through a smile. "I've been waiting for you to ask me since I found the ring in your pocket while doing laundry a few days ago."

His jaw falls open. "So…you knew I had the ring the whole time?"

"Only since the _third_ time you tried, I think. Unless there were more attempts."

"So I could have just asked you at any time this week."

"Well…yeah."

Beck scratches his head, and subsequently realizes he completely missed her lightening fast response. "Wait…you said yes, right?"

"I said yes."

His contagious grin lights up her face, too, and their lips immediately crash together before he slides the ring onto her finger.

"Okay," she says, pulling back from him, "I love you, but I'm covered in coffee."

"Shower?"

"Yes, please."

They can't stumble out of the bed together fast enough.


End file.
